Logical cloud routers used to route packets between tenants associated with a cloud network are often implemented as software-based routers running on a virtual machine, or using constructs such as Linux namespaces. While software-based routers have become increasingly powerful, the packet forwarding performance of software-based routers is generally not as good as the packet forwarding performance of hardware-based routers.
Although logical routers may be implemented as hardware-based routers due to the packet forwarding performance of hardware-based routers, the use of hardware-based routers may be insufficient with regards to handling volumes of traffic. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a virtual context may be created on a hardware router to support an instance of a logical router. The use of software-based routers is generally more scalable than the use of hardware-based routers, as software-based routers may be instantiated in much larger numbers in virtual machines, for example, than virtual contexts may be created in hardware-based routers.